


where my heart breaks and spills

by towokuwusatsuwu



Category: Crows Zero (Movies)
Genre: Coming Out, Communication, Established Relationship, Healthy Relationships, Multi, Polyamory, Trans Male Character, Trans Solidarity, past transphobia, supportive boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 10:43:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15313749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towokuwusatsuwu/pseuds/towokuwusatsuwu
Summary: yamashita faces a dilemma and decides to come out to shibata and goura after putting it off. what he finds is the love and acceptance he never thought he would, and maybe something a little sweeter and a little more special in the process.





	where my heart breaks and spills

The alarm set on his phone goes off when he’s stretched across Goura’s couch, a lump cushion stuffed beneath his head to provide some support. Yamashita Gohei swears and sits up, snatching the device off of the rickety coffee table, swiping the screen to send the reminder away. How had time gotten away from him this quickly?

His underarms are sore, his ribs lodging their soft complaints as he shoots a look across the room to where Goura and Shibata are attempting to share a chair; Yamashita took the entire couch for himself and he intends on keeping it. Goura wings an eyebrow up at him while Shibata cocks his head; both of them, of course, heard the loud and sudden blare of rap music, the signal that Yamashita needs to find a quiet place to change out of his binder and into a layer or two to hide the lack of it. Preferably, he wants to be  _ home _ when this happens.

He hasn’t told anyone yet. No one at Suzuran cares about anything but fighting and he quickly worked his way up the ladder, taking people down left and right without a care in the world. His explosive temper earned him the nickname  _ Black Dynamite _ and people scattered when he appeared unless they wanted to risk a chance and try to take him down. By the time he walked into Suzuran with his hair freshly styled and the new binder he’d been saving up for the last few years, no one saw anything but the face he showed to the world.

Before Kaburagi Kazeo came along, Yamashita was on his own. He never had  _ friends _ in the true sense of the word and he would have stayed away from people if it meant protecting his secret; it wasn’t long ago that he’d faced stark rejection from his peers the moment he changed his name and created a new life for himself. Even if he could have beaten the entire school to a bloody pulp for daring to look at him as anything less than who he is, he doesn’t want to have to. He wants to fight to prove he’s the best, not scrape just for the barest scraps of respect.

In his experience, you could knock a man’s teeth down his throat and he would still leer at you and call you what you weren’t because not even violence could change the hatred ingrained so deeply in some people. Best to keep the secret; everyone knows him as a man and that doesn’t have to change if he doesn’t want it to. No one needs to know how hard he worked for this image, for this recognition, for this respect.

Maybe he should have told them before now. Them, of course, being Goura Tooru and Shibata Hiroki. The three of them were at each other’s throats for more than long enough, but Kazeo’s appearance in Suzuran changed their lives— for the better, in his humble opinion— and now he finds himself spending lazy summer afternoons with these two idiots. He wouldn’t have it any other way, and still he hesitated to let them in on his more intimate secret.

Yamashita trusts them, but trusting someone with his identity is harder than he wants it to be.

“Gotta go somewhere?” Shibata asks him.

The question is the perfect opening for an escape back to his own home. “I, uh… It’s—”

“You just got here like, three hours ago.” Goura says this with no hint of irony, as if three hours is not a substantial amount of time. “I guess if it’s important and you gotta go, but…”

He lets the words drop, but Yamashita understands the point just the same; Goura wants him to stay longer, three hours evidently not enough time spent with him. The thought makes his throat tight, that someone would want to be around him for so long, that they would choose to keep him around for such a long stretch of time. After how long he spent on his own, mostly isolated from the rest of is peers, the thought that someone cares enough to want him around so much is almost too much for him to process.

Emotions were never his strong point. Hence the nickname.

Shibata smacks him in the back of the head, a disapproving expression on his handsome face. “Shut up, Tooru. If he’s got somewhere to be, he’s got somewhere to be. You’re good, babe. We’ll see you the next time you have some free time.”

Though most would never think much of Shibata, he’s sharp and clever, no doubt picking up on at least an inkling of the tension tightening Yamashita’s muscles, winding him quicker than the prospect of a fight does. The opening is clearly being provided on purpose, lines drawn in the sand so Yamashita can make an exit no matter what reason he has for leaving. Still, he catches his lower lip between his teeth and bites down.

Truth be told, he has no desire to leave. He  _ likes _ being with these two, for whatever that says about him and his choices in partners. Until his phone alarm went off, he was thinking about spending the rest of the day here and not leaving for home until nightfall, maybe not at all.

“Nah, nah, I…” He trails off, not sure what to say or how to walk into a discussion like this one. The pain is only slight, a warning that he needs to remove the binder now; he has time before it gets worse, but enough time? He has no idea. “It’s not that kind of alarm. It’s a reminder thing, not me needing to be somewhere at a certain time kinda thing.”

“You forget something?” Goura asks him. “Or I mean, obviously not since the alarm.”

Yamashita smiles faintly, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, nerves eating at his gut. No one is making him tell them; he can always make up an excuse, slip into the bathroom, and take the binder off. The trouble is he left his usual jacket at home, the warm summer sun promising he would hardly need it and the two layers plus his binder has a tendency to make him sweat through his clothing by the time he manages the walk to Goura’s apartment. This is his fault for not thinking things through, he knows this, and yet.

Even if he says nothing, the binder is the only thing that keeps his chest any semblance of flat. His chest isn’t horribly noticeable without it but it is noticeable, and would be through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. He might as well not even wear a shirt at all. If he changes out of the binder here, they would know even without him saying it. By that logic, should he just say it?

Or maybe he just brushes it all off and goes home. He can’t leave the binder on; he needs to stick to the regulations even though rules hardly matter to him most of the time. Damage to his chest region is a viable problem, one that can prevent any surgeries, and he knows people who broke their ribs because binding was more important to them than their personal safety.

Having a broken rib would make fighting a pain in the ass.

Shibata clears his throat. “Not to rush you, sweetheart, but if you’ve got something you want to tell us, you can. Or if you have somewhere to be, after all, you can go. We won’t stop you.”

The out, again. Shibata knows something is up. Yamashita sighs, squeezes his eyes shut. He has no reason to believe either of them would reject him, right? Neither of them have shown the tendency… “Nah, I’m. I just gotta. Listen, I… I’m wearing a binder underneath my t-shirt and that alarm was my reminder to take it off before it could cause any damage.”

“A binder.” Goura says the words slowly, dragging them out a little, and Yamashita shoots him a look for it. “You talking about, like… Across your chest? That’s what you’re talking about?”

“Yeah.” Yamashita wets his lips even though his mouth is just as dry. “Gotta take it off.”

Shibata exhales slowly. “Okay,” he says softly. “Bathroom’s right there, y’know.”

Yamashita chews on his lower lip some more before he nods and stands, shutting the bathroom door a little too hard behind him before he strips out of his t-shirt. The binder is black, dark against his skin and he strips out of it, shaking it out before replacing his t-shirt. The difference without it is definitely noticeable, but they… They know now, right? He just told them, in a way, so if they pretend they didn’t know— He doesn’t want to think about these things right now.

The two of them have migrated since he went into the bathroom. Shibata takes up one side of the couch and Goura takes up the other, leaving the space between them open for a third person. Yamashita hesitates at the sight, looks between them. The binder is bunched up in one hand, and though he feels a little lighter without it on, he still feels like he’s missing layers.

“You wanna come sit with us?” Goura asks him, voice low, a little husky, and syrupy sweet.

Yamashita sighs and drops down between them, hunching his shoulders a little, yanking at the bottom of his t-shirt. “So, you know now. Guess I’m sorry for not telling you earlier.”

“What?” Shibata asks, voice so soft.

“We like, run together now, right?” Yamashita glances at him from the corner of his eye and waits for Shibata’s nod before he continues. “And been doing that. I could’ve told you all this time and I didn’t until just now. And I guess I’m sorry for not trusting you, or whatever.”

Silence hangs between the three of them and Yamashita worries again about rejection— not for being who he is, but for not telling them, for not being honest— when Goura leans in against him, slings an arm around his waist and hugs him so tight it punches the air ot of his lungs.

“Don’t ever say that shit,” he says, and Yamashita leans back to look at him, not sure what to say. “You think you got something to be sorry for? ‘Cause you didn’t tell us you were trans?”

The way he says it without stumbling over the word has Yamashita blinking at him, not sure what to say— and then Shibata is at his back, hugging him from behind, arms placed carefully low on his waist and Yamashita could cry, really, that he thought that far ahead.

“We aren’t angry with you for not telling us.” Shibata kisses him behind the ear and Yamashita shivers, the close contact throwing him off when he’s in fight or flight mode. “You could have spent your whole life not telling us and we wouldn’t have been angry with you. It’s your life and your decision to tell who you want to tell, right, Tooru?”

Goura rakes a hand through his hair and tips his head back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Fuck it,” he finally says, reaching for the bottom of his own shirt. “You showed me yours so.”

Before Yamashita can say anything, the shirt comes off, tossed on the floor, and his eyes fix on Goura’s chest, on the dark green fabric there, a familiar design that nearly matches his own. And his mouth goes slack, and his throat closes and Yamashita doesn’t know what to say. Only Shibata’s arms around him keep him anchored to the spot, hands rubbing soothing circles into his stomach while Goura crosses his arms over his chest— over his own binder, a little older-looking and more worn than Yamashita’s own— and lifts his chin just slightly.

“You— I didn’t even realize,” Yamashita says for lack of anything better to say.

Goura smirks at him, almost beaming in his own assholeish, egotitistical way. “Nah, you didn’t. No one does. I told Shibata… I dunno, a few months ago? I meant to getting around to telling you to but just never did. But since you told us, it only seemed fair. I mean, what’re you gonna do, flip out on me when you’re the same way? Don’t think so.”

“I’m just happy to be trusted with important things,” Shibata says, his chin coming to rest on Yamashita’s shoulder. “Happy that my men feel like they can tell me things like this.”

“Sap,” Goura says, leaning over to punch the arm around Yamashita’s waist.

Shibata makes a wounded noise. “You’d hit me for something like this?”

“God, I was so worried about telling you two for fucking nothing.” Yamashita drags a hand down his face and laughs, shaking his head. “Man, that’s… A relief, honestly. Like, I knew you two weren’t gonna toss me out but at the same time—”

“At the same time you can’t just walk into things and tell people and not be a little bit afraid. I get it. Believe me, I do. Still haven’t told Kazeo or the little prince.” Goura shrugs, letting his arms drop, sitting so casually even with the binder exposed. Yamashita is a little envious. “But like, I’m gonna. Shibata just happened to be around when I was feeling pretty brave.”

Shibata’s arms tighten around Yamashita just a little. “And now I get to be here again when one of you is feeling brave. That’s a privilege, you know. I’m well aware of it.”

“But anyway, what I was saying.” Goura leans over, takes Yamashita’s hands in his own, and it feels strangely intimate— maybe moreso than anything they’ve done together so far. “You don’t have to tell anyone, y’know? I get it, being scared even when you know you don’t have to be. It’s hard, man. But you told us. You looked so uneasy about it but you  _ did _ it. We’re proud of you.”

“Thanks. I just, yeah, you get it. I don’t have to explain.” Yamashita says, his lips trembling just the barest amount as they widen in a smile, his chest feeling mysteriously light.

Goura smiles at him. Not a grin or a smirk but a genuine smile, leaning in to bump their foreheads together lightly. “Guys like us gotta stick together. I got your back. Shibata’s got your back ‘cause if he didn’t I’d put a knife in his and he damn well knows it.”

“That’s fair,” Shibata says.

“I’m so fucking glad. Like, I’ve never had another dude to talk to about this stuff before. Never told anyone, so I couldn’t reach out to anyone.” Yamashita squeezes Goura’s hands. “Means so much to have someone. Means more that it’s  _ you, _ y’know, without sounding like the sap behind me, but… I already know you. I already get you.”

“I get you, too,” Goura tells him.

Shibata huffs. “The word is  _ love _ , you know.”

“Shut up. No one asked you.” Goura mushes Shibata’s face and pushes him back and Yamashita laughs, shaking his head at the two of them. “Anyway, Gohei, anything you ever wanna talk about, you can hit me up. For what it’s worth, I’m glad, too, that I get to meet someone else who’s got this situation, and it’s you. And I already, yeah, okay,  _ love _ you.”

“Good man!” Shibata says, narrowly avoiding getting his face hit again.

Yamashita breathes a sigh of relief— the tension unwinds from his entire body, his muscles finally relaxing. “Thanks. I just. Yeah. I love you, too.”

“Um, I’m feeling a bit unloved here,” Shibata says, pressing his fingers into Yamashita’s stomach until he yelps and squirms, ticklish enough that it affects him. “Do you love me? Do either of you love me? Or am I just a pretty face?”

“Hiroki, shut the fuck up. You know we love you.” Goura rolls his eyes, and Yamashita just grins.

Shibata hums in contentment and then pulls Yamashita back against his chest, his arms fixed firmly around him, head resting on his shoulder once more. Goura looks thoughtful for a moment and then pounces smooth as a jaguar, landing on top of both of them, pinning Shibata firmly underneath them while he grins down at Yamashita. The proximity is perfect for a kiss; Yamashita tilts his head when Goura leans down closer to him, their lips brushing together, Goura’s facial hair tickling his skin just enough for him to feel it.

This is good. This acceptance, this surprise finding someone who’s lived his experiences, who wants to be a shoulder for him, someone he can lean on when things are hard— This is better than he would have ever been able to imagine on his own.

“You’re going to squish me to death,” Shibata says conversationally though his voice sounds breathy and strained, probably from being crushed beneath two people.

“Dramatic.” Goura kisses Yamashita again, a long and lingering kiss that steals his breath away. “What do you say? Let’s just crush him to death so he stops whining so much.”

Yamashita pretends to think about it, grinning when Shibata whines in his ear, nuzzling against his neck. “Nah, I guess we should keep him around for that pretty face of his. He ain’t so bad after all. Even if he’d die the moment he stopped being a drama queen.”

“I’m not a drama queen. Rude.” Shibata kisses the side of his neck and Yamashita shivers; more facial hair, more tickling. “Thank you, though, baby. I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

Goura helps Yamashita sit up and he ends up staying between the two of them. Goura eventually retrieves his t-shirt when he needs to take his binder off— he does it in front of them with such a lazy confidence that Yamashita is  _ determined _ to learn from him— and then plops back into place, pulling Yamashita’s head over into his lap, fingers combing through his hair.

Yamashita doesn’t leave. He stays all night and falls asleep between them.


End file.
